In the Chain of Responsibility Pattern, objects using and implementing an interface (one or more methods) are intentionally loosely coupled. A set of objects that implement the interface are organised in a list (or in rare cases a tree). Objects using the interface make requests from the first implementor object. It will decide whether to perform any action itself and whether to pass the request further down the line in the list (or tree). Sometimes a default implementation for some request is also coded into the pattern if none of the implementors respond to the request.

Example

In this example, the script sends requests to the lister object. The lister points to a UnixLister object. If it can't handle the request, it sends the request to the WindowsLister. If it can't handle the request, it sends the request to the DefaultLister.

The output will be a list of files (with slightly different format depending on the operating system).

Here is a UML representation:

Variations to this pattern:

we could have an explicit interface, e.g. Lister, to statically type the implementations but because of duck-typing this is optional

we could use a chain tree instead of a list, e.g. if (animal.hasBackbone()) delegate to VertebrateHandler else delegate to InvertebrateHandler

we could always pass down the chain even if we processed a request

we could decide at some point to not respond and not pass down the chain

we could use Groovy's meta-programming capabilities to pass unknown methods down the chain